Woman and Society (Die Frauenfrage)

Schmidt Number: S-1426

On-line since: 14th January, 2001

A lecture by
Rudolf Steiner
Hamburg, November 17, 1906
Bn/GA 54

A lecture on feminism from the perspective of the science of the
spirit.

This lecture, translated from the German by an unknown translator,
was given in Hamburg on November 17, 1906. In the collected edition
of Rudolf Steiner's works, the volume containing the German text is
entitled:
Die Weltraetsel und die Anthroposophie
(vol. 54 in the Bibliographic Survey).

The lecture is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf
Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture has been made available.

IT MAY PERHAPS seem
strange that something like our theme today, which touches so
strongly on current everyday issues, could be considered from the
world-view of Spiritual Science, from a view of life and the world
today which looks to the very greatest enigmas of human existence. In
many circles which occupy themselves with Spiritual Science, or in
such circles as have heard something of the spirit in this
world-outlook, there is the view that Spiritual Science is something
that does not concern itself in any way with current questions, with
the interests of immediate life. People believe — some as a
reproach to the Theosophical movement, and others seeing this as one
of its advantages — that Spiritual Science concerns itself only
with the great questions of Eternity, that it holds itself aloof from
everyday events. People consider it, in both a good and a bad sense,
to be something unpractical. But if, in our time, Spiritual Science
is to fulfill a task, a mission, then it must take hold of what moves
the heart, it must be able to take up a position with regard to those
questions which play into our day-to-day thinking and into our
day-to-day striving and hope.

It must have something
to say about those questions which are a part of our times. For how
could it be that questions which come so close to the human soul
— like the question concerning women which is to occupy us
today — how could it be that these, too, should not be judged
from a world-view which looks to the great problems of human
existence. And it is just this that is often and rightly said against
Spiritual Science; that it has not found the way to life as it is in
reality. Nothing would be more wrong than if Spiritual Science were
to be led increasingly into asceticism, into a direction hostile to
life. It will prove itself far more by building a real foundation for
the practice of life. It must not float in Cloud-cuckoo land or lose
itself in bare abstractions, but must have something to say to human
beings of the present.

Just as we have spoken
here about the social question, today we want to speak from a great
cultural standpoint, from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, of the
question regarding women. Of course, no one must imagine that
Spiritual Science should speak about this question in the same way as
do politics or current printed matter. But then again, one should not
believe that what, in effect, is a sort of parochial politics is the
only thing that is practical. The individual who has always shown
himself to be truly practical is the one who can see beyond the
immediate present. And who was the practical individual when in the
last century the postage stamp had to be invented and introduced into
everyday life, and which since then, has transformed the whole of our
life of public commerce, our whole social life? It happened little
more than fifty years ago. The idea of this arrangement — the
practicality of which is doubted today by no one — came at that
time from someone not engaged in practical things. The Englishman,
Hill, did not work for the Post Office. But one who did, had the
following ingenious comment to make; One could not believe that this
arrangement would cause such a great change in commercial or business
life, but were that to be the case, the post office buildings would
not be large enough to cope with the postal demands!

Another example. When
the first railway was to be built from Berlin to Potsdam, the head of
the Post Office, Nagler said, ‘Well, if people want to throw
their money out of the window they might as well do so directly. I
send two post-coaches and nobody travels in them.’ And of
course you know the other incident which occurred in the Bavarian
college of doctors: the learned gentlemen were asked, purely from a
practical, medical point of view, if the nervous system could stand
it if railways were built. The learned gentlemen said it was
unpractical to the highest degree, because it would cause severe
damage to the nervous system.

This is by way of
illustration of the relation of the ‘practical people’
— in matters of the issues of the day — to those who,
with somewhat broader vision, see beyond into the future. These, the
disparaged idealists who do not remain attached to what has been the
‘done thing’ since the days of yore, these are the really
practical ones. And from this point of view Spiritual Science appears
also today as a vehicle which carries the answers to many questions
— and also for our question today. For this reason anyone who
deals with these questions from a higher point of view can accept
such a reproach without feeling uneasy, and can remember other
examples where, believing they had a monopoly in practicality, people
have judged in a similar way.

Few will deny that the
question regarding women is one of the greatest present questions of
our culture, for today this is simply a fact. There are opponents to
certain views on the question of women, but the fact that this
question exists will be denied by no one. Yet if we look back to
times that are not so far behind us, we find that even the leading
scientific and other great minds have seen in the women's question
something absurd, something to be suppressed by all possible means.
As an example, we can recall the statements of the anatomist, Albert,
a truly significant man, who twenty five years ago, pitted himself
with the greatest energy against the admission of women into the
learned professions, and who, from the standpoint of his
anatomical-physiological knowledge, tried to prove that it would be
impossible for women to get into the educated professions or ever be
able to fulfill the profession of a doctor. With the great authority
of natural science it is hardly surprising that one believes those to
be capable of judgment who, in relation to the natural-scientific
view of the human being, are supposed to know something. A short
while ago a booklet came out in Germany: ‘Uber den
Physiollogischen Schachsinn des Weibes’ (Concerning the
physiological feeble-mindedness of women). This booklet stems from a
man
Möbius, who indeed, is not at all an insignificant
physiologist, who has said some good things, but who, on the other
hand, has exposed not so much himself but the science of Physiology
to ridicule by presenting, little by little, all the various great
personalities of world-historic development of recent times —
Goethe,
Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche — as pathological phenomena. He has done
this, furthermore, in such a grotesque and radical manner, that one
would have to ask with each genius, ‘Where does the insanity
lie?’ Goethe, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche — all are dealt
with from the standpoint of psychiatry, of psychological
pathology.

When one goes more
deeply into these things, they all fall into only one category
— one that is characterised by the example of the famous
naturalist who tried some time ago to attribute the ‘inferior
talent’ of women to the lighter weight of the female brain!
This is no fable! This man asserted that the greatness of the spirit
was dependent on the size of the brain, and that women, on average,
have a smaller brain than men. And quite truly it then happened that
the methods of this learned professor were applied to himself. After
his death, his brain was weighed, and it turned out that he had an
abnormally small brain, a much smaller brain than those women whom he
held to be of inferior mind because of their lighter brain weight. It
would be mischievous if one were to try and examine, from a
psyche-pathological standpoint, a booklet like this one on the
physiological feeble-mindedness of women, and if one were to try to
catch out the writer in question as happened in the case of Professor
Bischoff.

So you can see that
the women's question does not bear witness to the fact that those who
opposed it were particularly discerning The question regarding women
includes far more than that of admitting women into the learned
professions, and of the question of women's education. The issue
concerning women embraces an economic, a social and a psychological
side, and many other aspects as well. But it is precisely the
question of women's education that has, in fact, borne fruits. Almost
all the opinions in this area that have been formed out of theory
have been refuted by actual practice. Little by little women have
fought for, and won — in spite of the opposition of the
opinions of a man's world — admission to most male professions,
including that of lawyer, doctor, philologist and so on. Women have
taken up these professions under significantly less favourable
conditions than men. One has only to consider under what unfavourable
circumstances women have recently entered universities. With the
normal educational preparation this is really not to difficult, but
women had to get there with very much less preparation. Not only
through tremendous hard work, but also through a broad spectrum of
abilities, they have for the most part overcome all the difficulties.
In determination, in hard work, and also in mental ability they are
in no way inferior to men, so that reality in practice, has resolved
the matter in a completely different way than many, twenty to thirty
years ago, had imagined in theory.

Various professors,
led by their prejudices, refused women entry into university. And yet
today, very many women graduates stand in the world, in no way less
able or less perceptive than men.

This however,
illustrates the outer situation alone, and only shows us that we must
look more deeply into the nature of the human being, into the nature
of women, if we want to understand the matter as a whole. For there
is no one today who would not be affected in some way by the
significance of this question. Although women have won access to the
learned professions — and to numerous others — and
although, in actual practice a large part of the question concerning
women's abilities has been answered, nevertheless, if we wish to
progress consciously, clearly, and with insight, if we wish to
discuss this question from all sides, then we must look more deeply
into the nature of the human being.

What a lot has been
said about the difference between man and woman! Everywhere today you
can read in short reviews how many different opinions there are
concerning the difference between men and women, and how, from these
differing opinions people have tried to form a view concerning the
question of women. A great deal has been written on the psychological
aspect of the women's question. There is no better book on this
aspect — in so far as such books are written by
non-theosophists — than the one by a gifted woman who is active
generally in present day literature: ‘Zur Kritik der
Weiblichkeit’ (A critique of femininity) by Rosa
Meyreder. You can find different views catalogued elsewhere so
let us look at a few of them.

Let us take the man
Lombroso. He describes Woman by saying that at the centre of
her emotional character is the feeling of submissiveness, the feeling
of dependence. George Egerton on the other hand says that
every woman who looks dispassionately at a man sees him as a big
child, and it is precisely from this that the love of power, of
domination comes, which is so totally inherent in a woman that it
insinuates itself more and more into the central position in the
female soul.

A great scientist,
Virchov, says that if one studies Woman from an external,
physiological standpoint, one finds gentleness, mildness and calmness
to be the basis of her being. Havelock Ellis, an expert of
equally high standing in these matters, says that the fundamental
characteristic of the female soul is quick temperedness, initiative
and daredevilry. Mobius finds the basic feature of the female nature
to be conservatism: to be conservative, he maintains, is the
life-element of the female soul. Against this we can put the judgment
of an old and good expert of the psyche, Hippel. He says that
the real revolutionary within humanity is Woman.

Go to the vast
majority of people and you will find a very strange but fairly common
view of the relation between intellect, feelings and passion in men
and women. Then, in contrast look at Nietzsche's view. He says that
the intellect belongs primarily to Woman, and feelings and passion to
Man. Compare this with the common view. It is the exact opposite.
Thus we could say a great deal and, on the one side, could list all
the views which ascribe to woman all the passive, the weak qualities,
and on the other side all those which maintain the opposite. But
certainty comes somewhat to a standstill when so many different views
are possible.

Science too has
occupied itself a great deal with this question, and Science enjoys
great authority. But the statements of scientists concerning the real
fundamental characteristics of woman immediately start contradicting
one another. And if we move on from scientists and psychologists to
cultural history and hold to what has always been said — that
man is the really creative active one, and woman more the companion,
the follower — then such a view would be prejudiced because we
have taken too short a time span into consideration, one has only to
look at those peoples who still represent what is left of ancient
cultures, or at primitive peoples, and one has only to follow the
history of humanity's development to see that there were times once,
and there are still such peoples today, in which the woman, in the
most eminent sense, participated and participates in
‘masculine’ work.

In short, the opinions
vary in all directions. Even more noticeable for us is the fact that
a woman of one particular people (or nation or tribe) will differ far
less from a man of the same people than from a woman of another. From
this we can draw the conclusion that we should not talk at all in
terms of man and woman, male and female, but that, alongside the
characteristics of sexual gender, there is possibly something far
more important in human society than the sexual characteristics of
gender and which is quite independent of them. If one looks
impartially at the human being, it is usually possible to distinguish
what is of necessity connected to all that is related to the sexes,
and what points beyond these connections into other realms entirely.
Of course a materialistic view of the world and of the human being,
which recognises only what can be touched and seen, naturally sees in
man and woman only the big physiological differences; and anyone who
remains with this materialistic view will simply miss, will overlook
something that is far greater and more decisive than sexual
differences — he will overlook the individuality which goes
beyond gender and is independent of it.

To shed light here, to
see the human being here in the right way: this must be the task of a
world-view oriented towards the spirit.

Before we look at the
women's question from this point of view, we will just look at
aspects of what this question represents.

People talk about
‘the women's question’ in general, but this also, like
the concept of Woman, is an unacceptable generalisation. One should
not really speak of the women's question in general at all, because
this question must he modified in relation to the different social
classes of humanity. Does the question concerning woman exist in the
same way in the lower classes, in the manual-worker class, as in the
educated classes? The lowest classes, the actual manual workers, try
with all means at their disposal to get their women out of the
factories and the textile mills, so that they can be with the family.
The higher classes strive for exactly the opposite. They strive to
make it possible for the woman of the family to work in the world
outside. This then is something of the social aspect of the women's
question.

Alongside this, of
course, there is also the general social question concerning women
which demands for them in the political and cultural context the same
rights as those enjoyed by men. People have the view today that they
are speaking of things which must follow from the very nature of
humanity itself. People do not consider, however, that the life of
humanity changes far faster than on the surface it may appear to do.
A man, Naumann, who from his political standpoint also
occupied himself with the women's question, was at pains to study in
connection with this the St. Paul's Church discussions of 1848 in
which a lot was said concerning human rights. There they debated to
and fro the self-evident rights of man. Nowhere, however, is it
mentioned that these rights should be the same for women as for men.
That never entered anyone's head. The women's question came into
this area only in the second half of the 19th century. And it
seems fully justified here to throw up the other question: How is it
then that this aspect of the women's question has been considered
only in our time? Let us be quite clear about this.

In many ways today the
women's question is presented, from both the masculine and the
feminine side, as though it is only now that women have to struggle
to gain a definite and significant influence in all areas of life. In
many respects these discussions are characterised by great
shortsightedness, for one must ask oneself: In other times, in all
earlier times, have women then had no influence at all? Have they
always been fettered beings? It would be ignorance if one were to
assert such a thing.

We can look at the age
of the Renaissance and take one of the most widely-used books about
that period — the book by Burckhardt. Here we see what a
profound influence women had, for example, on the whole intellectual
life of Italy; how woman stood in the foreground of intellectual
life, how they were equal to men and played a great part. And
finally, had one spoken of women's lack of influence in the first
half of the 19th century to such an individual as
Rahel Varnhagen, she would have been astonished that such a theme
could have been brought up. She would not have understood how anyone
could think in such a way. But there is many a man today who
exercises his general right to vote, or even debates in Parliament
and gives long speeches, who is truly a non-entity when one thinks of
the entire cultural progress that has been brought forth by this
woman, Rahel Varnhagen. Anyone who studies the intellectual
life of the first half of the 19th century and sees what sort of
influence this woman had on the men of the 19th century, will no
longer be tempted to say that woman was a being without influence on
those times. The matter simply rests on the fact that opinions have
changed. One did not believe at that time that one needed a simple
right to vote, that one had to debate in Parliament, or that one had
to study at university in order to have an influence on the course of
culture. One looked at it differently in every way. This is not said
with any conservative intention, but as evidence that the whole
question is a product of our present culture and can be posed only
today in the way it is posed at present, and can be posed only today
in all areas of life (not only in the area of higher education).

Just take a look at
the relation of man and woman in earlier times when quite different
economic conditions prevailed. Look at the peasant woman, the female
labourer in earlier centuries. One cannot say that the peasant woman
had fewer rights than the peasant, or a more limited sphere of
influence. She had one particular department to look after and he
another. And it was just the same in the crafts. What in the working
classes has today become the real women's question has become so
because in past centuries and particularly in the last century, our
culture has become, in the greatest sense, a male culture
(Männerkultur). The age of the machine is a product of the male
culture, and it is simply the quality and nature of this culture that
renders far more impossible the way a woman can work and be active
than was the case in earlier economic life. Woman is not suited to
the factory and there are quite different problems there than when
she is engaged in the farmyard, in the house or in the old
craft-industries as manageress, contractor or co-worker. Also, as
regards the academic professions, everything in our world, in our
perception, has changed. Our whole estimation of the professions has
become something different. It is not so long ago that what today is
regarded as a learned profession was really little more than a higher
craft. There was a particular way of being active in law, in
medicine, and even a relatively short time ago it would never have
entered anyone's head to derive a religious world-view from what was
presented in medicine, in law or in natural science. Today it is the
specialist knowledge of what is researched in the laboratory that has
gradually become the domain of men; and it is from this that a higher
world-view is extracted. Earlier, however, like a spirit over
everything that was studied in the university faculties, there
hovered Religion and Philosophy — and it was within these, to
begin with, that higher education was to be sought. The truly human
element that which spoke to the heart and soul, that which spoke to
the human being of his yearnings and hopes of eternity, that which
gave him strength and certainty in life — this element was the
same for both men and women, it arose from an origin other than from
the laboratory or from physiological research. One could attain to
the highest heights of philosophical and religious development
without any kind of academic education at all. One could do this at
any time — even as a woman. Only because the materialistic age
has made so-called positive science with its so-called facts and
basis of higher problems only because of this is it so that,
alongside the general inclination arising from practical life,
another inclination, one of the heart, a longing of the soul had to
arise and drive women even to look into the mysteries offered us by
the microscope, the telescope, and the research of physiology and
biology. For, as long as people thought that decisions could not be
made by means of a microscope concerning the life and immortality of
the human being, so long as people knew that these truths had to be
drawn from quite other sources, there could not be such a clamouring
for scientific studies as there is today. We must be aware of this:
that the trend of our age has generated this desire for academic
education and that the women's question itself has come up in our
time through the whole nature of our culture.

However, in contrast
to everything that this new age has brought, in contrast to
everything that rests on a purely materialistic basis, we also meet,
in the spiritual-scientific outlook, a movement that is still little
heeded. It is the spiritual-scientific world-view which will have to
solve the questions of Life and co-operate in all the cultural
streams and strivings of the future. But no one can fail to recognise
this world-view when one believes it to be nothing but the imaginings
of a wild fantasy. Yet it is the outcome of the spiritual research of
those best acquainted with the needs and longing of our time, who
take it most seriously. Only those who do not wish to know anything
about the needs of our time can still remain distant from this
world-stream which extends eminently and practically into all
questions. Spiritual science is not something that indulges in
unfruitful criticism, it is not something conservative. It regards
materialism as justified, and takes into account that it arose in the
last century. It was necessary that old religious feelings and
traditions lost their importance in comparison to the claims of the
natural sciences. Spiritual science can see how it has come about
that physiology and biology have become deniers of immortality, even
if it doesn't agree with them. This had to happen. But humanity will
never be able to live without a glimpse of, without knowledge of real
super-sensible, spiritual things. Only for a short time will people be
able to keep on making do as they do today with specialist knowledge
and with what arises in many ways from this direction as religious
results or non-results.

But a time will come
when people will feel that the wellsprings of the spirit in life must
be opened. And Spiritual Science is the advance post of this battle
for the opening of the true spiritual wellsprings of humanity.
Spiritual Science will, on a much broader basis, be able again to
tell humanity how it is related to the being of the soul, to what
rises up above the transient and the fleeting. On a far broader basis
than was ever formerly the case in the public world, Spiritual
Science will proclaim that which gives certainty, strength, courage
and endurance in life, that which can shed light into those questions
which occupy day-to-day living and which cannot be solved from the
material side alone.

It is a strange
coincidence — many will understand this that at the beginning
of the Theosophical movement there stands a woman, Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky — that precisely here we have the unprecedented
experience, that here we have a woman with the most all-embracing
mind, with the most penetrating force and energy of mind who has
written works compared to which all the spirituality which our
culture (Geisteskultur) has otherwise produced is but a trifle.

Now, perhaps you
believe nothing of the so-called occult teachings, the so-called
insights into the spiritual world that are contained in Blavatsky's
‘Isis Unveiled’ or the so-called ‘Secret
Doctrine’ — perhaps you believe nothing of this; but
take a look at these books some time and ask yourself: ‘How
many thinkers of today have known more penetratingly about so many
things as Blavatsky?’

The two enormous
volumes of The Secret doctrine give information on almost all
areas of spiritual life, ancient culture, ancient religion; on all
possible branches of natural science, social life, astronomy and
physiology. Perhaps what is said there is incorrect; but even if it
were, I would still ask you: who is in the position today to speak in
such a competent way even if incorrectly — about all these
areas, and to show thereby that he has acquainted himself deeply with
all of them? you need only take into account not solely the
correctness, but also the breadth of mind — which cannot be
denied — and you have the example of a woman who has shown, not
in this or that branch of human thinking, but in the entire range of
human mental and spiritual life what the female mind can achieve with
regard to a higher world-view. Even if one takes an unbiased view of
Max Muller's works on religious history, and compares their
content with the all-embracing content of the Secret Doctrine,
one will see how far the latter surpasses the former. Thus it is a
strange circumstance that a woman stands at the outset of this
Theosophical movement. This is perhaps explained precisely through
those things which have also shown us the women's question as arising
from our present intellectual and spiritual life.

If we look more deeply
into the course of human spiritual development, then what otherwise
might astound us will perhaps appear as a spiritual-historical
necessity. In order, however, to be able to do this fruitfully, we
must briefly look once more into the being of Man. We will give a
picture, sketching human nature in broad outline.

What materialism, what
the everyday world-view of human beings is aware of, is regarded by
spiritual-scientific research, by Theosophy, as just one part of the
human being. I can only give you a few rough sketches today. They are
not mere imaginings or daydreams, but are things that are as certain
as mathematical judgments are for mathematicians.

So, what the human
being knows in his everyday view, in his usual knowledge of human
beings, is just one part of the human being: the physical body. This
human physical body has the same physical and chemical forces, laws
and substances that are found outside in so-called inanimate nature.
Outside are the forces which form the dead stone and are the
‘life’ within the stone and the same forces are also in
the physical body of the human being. Beyond this, however, the
spiritual-scientific world-view sees a second body in man's nature,
to begin with, which man has in common with plants. Present-day
science in its speculations already speaks a little of that which
Spiritual Science is pointing to, of a particular
‘life-principle’, for the laws of materialism which,
fifteen years ago were still valid for many, have been overcome by
those with insight. But present day scientific research will only be
able to deduce this second body through a kind of speculation.
Theosophical, spiritual research, however, has reference to the
testimony of those who have a higher faculty of perception, and who
have a similar relation to the average person in the street as does a
sighted man to a blind one. This research has reference to the
testimony of such individuals who know this second body as something
real, something actually there. Anyone who knows nothing of this has
no more right to judge than a blind person has the right to pass
judgment on colours.

All talk of limits to
human knowledge is a nonsense. One should rather ask: Is it not
possible for the human being to rise to a higher level of knowledge?
Are not what one calls the eyes and the ears of the spirit perhaps a
reality? There have always been individuals who have worked on
certain latent faculties and who can thus see more than others. Their
testimony might be just as valid as the testimony of those who look
through the microscope. How many people have actually seen what the
scientific history of creation teaches? I would like to ask, how many
people have seen what they talk about? How many, for example, have in
actual fact, proof of the development of the human embryo? If they
were to ask themselves such questions they would see what a blind
faith it is that governs them. And if it is a justified faith, then
the faith based on the testimony of the Initiates who speak from
their spiritual experiences is equally justified.

Thus, in a
spiritual-scientific sense, we speak of a second body of man's being.
It is the same thing which, in the Christian religion, we find
designated by St. Paul as the spiritual body. We speak of the
etheric or life-body. Any particular sum of chemical and physical
forces would never crystallise themselves into a life form if they
were not formed principally by that which permeates every living body
as its etheric or life-body. Thus we call this second body the
etheric or life body. It is that which the human being has in common
with the entire plant and animal world.

But the plant does not
have what we call urges, desires, passions. A plant has no inner
sensation (Empfindung) of pleasure or pain, for one cannot speak of
sensation when one observes that a being reacts only to what is
external. One can only speak of sensations when the outer stimulus is
reflected inwardly, when it is there as an inner experience.
This domain of present-day physiology, which speaks of a body of
sensations in the plant, only shows a tremendous dilettantism in the
comprehension of such concepts.

Where animal life
begins, where pleasure, pain, urges, desires and passions begin, one
speaks of the third body of the human being, the astral body. Man has
this in common with the whole animal world.

Now there is something
in the human being which goes over and beyond the animal world and
which makes man the crown of creation. We can best bring this before
our souls by making a small and subtle observation.

There is in the whole
range of the language one name which differs from all others.
Everyone can say ‘table’ to a table, or
‘chair’ to a chair. But there is one name which
cannot be used in the same way. No one can say ‘I’ to me
and mean me. The word ‘I’ can never fall on our ears when
it means me. People have always felt this to be something of
essential importance. And one found, even in the most popular of
ancient religious faiths, that an important point regarding the soul
lay here. Where the soul begins to feel the divine in itself, where
it begins in this dialogue with itself to say ‘I’ to
itself, to converse with itself in such a way that cannot come from
outside, then that is where the divine being of the soul begins its
path of development in man. The god in the human being is made known
here. The secret and ancient teachings of the Hebrews perceived this.
Thus this name was called the unutterable Name of God, the name which
means: “I am the I-am”.

In the belief of the
Old Testament, this name signified the annunciation of the Godhead in
the human soul. For this reason tremendously powerful feelings and
sensations went through the throng when the priest announced this
name of the Godhead in the human soul: Jahve. This is the fourth body
in the human being, with which his external nature ends and his
divinity begins. And we have seen how man is guided, as it were, by
outer forces upwards to the ‘I’. There he stands, and
from then onwards he begin to work in himself. This ‘I’
works downwards into the three other parts of the human being. Be
quite clear about this difference that exists between human beings
from this point of view. Compare a savage with an average European,
or with a noble idealist perhaps
Schiller or Francis of Assisi.

If the astral body is
the bearer of desires and passions, we must say: the astral body of
the savage is completely surrounded by the forces of Nature, but the
average European has worked something into his astral body. He says
to himself of certain passions and desires, ‘you cannot pursue
these’ — for he has transformed his astral body. And it
has been transformed even more by such a personality as Schiller, and
still more by a personality who stands in no relation at all to
passions — such as Francis of Assisi — and who has
completely purified and is master of this astral body, over all urges
and desires. Thus one can say of a human being who has worked on
himself, that his astral body consists of two parts. One part is that
which is given by Nature, by divine powers; and the other is that
part which he himself has developed within it. This second part, the
part transformed by the ‘I’, we call Spirit-Self or
Manas.

Now there are things
which go more deeply still into the nature of man, where the
‘I’ works down further than just into the astral body. As
long as you check your vices simply by moral and legal maxims, you
are working on your astral body. But there are other cultural means
whereby the ‘I’ works on itself, and those are the
religious impulses of humanity. What stems from religion is a driving
force of the spiritual life, is more than external legal maxims or
moral tenets. When the ‘I’ works on the basis of
religious impulses it works into the etheric body. In just the same
way, when the ‘I’ is absorbed in gazing on a work of art
and gains an intimation that behind the existence of the senses there
can be embodied an eternal, hidden element, then the artistic image
works not only into the astral body of the human being but ennobles
and purifies the etheric body. If you could only observe, as a
practicing occultist, the way in which a Wagner opera works on the
different members of the human nature, it would convince you that it
is especially music which is able to send its vibrations deep into
the etheric body.

The etheric body is
also the bearer of everything that is more or less permanent in human
nature. One must be quite clear what kind of difference exists
between the development of the etheric body and the astral body. Let
us recall our own life. Just think of all you have learnt since you
were eight; it is a tremendous amount. Consider the content of your
souls: principles, mental pictures and so on. These are changes,
transformations of your astral body. But now think how little in most
people — there has been a change in what we call habits,
temperament and general abilities. If someone is short-tempered, this
already showed itself early on and has changed little. If someone was
a forgetful child, he will still be a forgetful person today. One can
show this unequal development by a small example. Think of this
development as if the changes in the astral body could be shown by
the minute-hand of a clock, and the changes in the etheric body by
the hour-hand. What the human being changes in his etheric body, what
the ‘I’ has made out of the etheric body, is called
Buddhi or, if one wishes to use the term — Life-Spirit.

There is a still
higher development which the occult pupil undergoes. This rests on
the fact that one becomes a completely different human being in the
etheric body. When the ordinary person learns, he learns with the
etheric body. When the pupil of Spiritual Science learns, he must
become a different person. His habits and temperament must change;
for it is this that allows him to see into other worlds. His whole
etheric body is gradually transformed.

The most difficult
thing for a human being is to learn to work, even into the physical
body. One can become master of how the blood circulates; one can gain
influence over the nervous system over the process of breathing and
so on; one can also learn here. When the human being is able to work
into his physical body and learn thereby to enter into a connection
with the Cosmos, he develops his Atman. This is the highest member of
the being of Man; and because it is connected with the process of
breathing (Atmung) it is called Atman. Spirit-Man is then found in
physical man.

Thus, just as the
rainbow has seven colours and the scale seven notes, so we have seven
members of the being of man. The human being, then, consists of:
first, the physical body; second, the etheric body; third, the astral
body; fourth, the ‘I’; fifth, Manas; sixth, Buddhi; and
seventh, Atman. When Man arrives at the highest stage of his
development, when he makes his own physical body, then we have true
Spirit-Man.

Now with regard to the
question concerning us today, we must look more closely at this
being, at this nature of Man. A riddle in the relations between man
and woman will resolve itself here in a strange way out of human
nature itself. It is precisely occultism, or the intimate observation
of the human nature, that guides us into the physical body, the
etheric body, the astral body, the ‘I’, and that which
the ‘I’ has done.

In every human being
— this is a fact — the etheric body consists of two
parts; the etheric body of a man, as he lives among us, shows itself
to have feminine features, and the etheric body of a woman to have
masculine features. Many facts in life become clearer when we
recognise that in a man there is something of the feminine nature,
and in a woman, a more masculine nature. From this it can be
explained why certain character features can arise in Man. In truth
we never have before us in the physical, material human body anything
other than a physical expression of the totality of the
individuality. The human soul forms for itself a body with two poles,
just as a magnet does. It forms for itself a masculine and a feminine
part, each of which can be either a physical body, or reacts at
another time as the etheric body. Hence, with regard to those
emotions which are associated with the etheric body — devotion,
courage, love — a woman can clearly evince masculine
characteristics, and a man womanly characteristics. In contrast, with
regard to all those characteristics which depend more on the physical
body, the consequences of gender will express themselves in outer
life.

Hence it seems clear
that in every human being, if we wish to consider him as a totality,
we have a phenomenon before us with two parts — one revealed
and material, and one hidden and spiritual. And only that man is a
complete human being who is capable of combining an external
masculinity with a beautiful feminine character within. And it is
precisely this that the greatest spirit, namely, those of a mystical
nature, have always felt in the spiritual life of the past.

This is an important
point. Men have played a greater part because materialism impels
itself towards an external culture. This external culture is a man's
culture because it was meant to be a material culture. But we must
also be aware that in the development of world history one cultural
epoch gives way to another, and that this one-sided masculine culture
must find its completion through that which lives in every human
being. One senses this precisely in the age of this masculine
culture. That is why, when the mystics spoke from the innermost
depths of their souls, they defined this soul as something feminine.
And it is from this that you find everywhere the comparison of the
soul, receptive as it is to the world, with Woman; and on this is
based Goethe's saying in the ‘Chorus mysticus':

Everything transient
Is but illusion
The inadequate —
Here it becomes event;
The indescribable —
Here it is done;
The Eternal-feminine
Bears us aloft.

It is nonsense to
analyse this saying in a trivial way. One can analyse it in a right
way, and in the true Goethean sense, when one says: He who knew
something of noble spiritual culture also pointed to the feminine
character of the soul; and precisely from this masculine culture did
the saying: ‘The Eternal feminine bears us aloft’
struggle free. Thus the greater world, the Macrocosm was pictured as
a man, and the soul, which was fructified by the wisdom of the
Cosmos, as the feminine.

And what then is this
peculiar way of thinking which has developed in men over the
centuries, this logic? If we wish to look into the depths of its
nature, then we must see something feminine — imagination
— which must be fructified by the masculine.

Thus, when we consider
that which grows over and beyond the differences of gender, we see
the higher nature of the human being — that which the
‘I’ creates out of the lower bodies. Man and woman must
look on their physical body as an instrument which enables them, in
one direction or another, to be active as a totality in the physical
world. The more human beings are aware of the spiritual within them,
the more does the body become an instrument, and the more do they
learn to understand people by looking into the depths of the
soul.

This, indeed, will not
give you a solution to the Woman's question, but it will give you a
perspective. You cannot solve the Woman's question with trends and
ideals! In reality you can only solve it by creating that concept,
that disposition of soul which enables men and women to understand
each other out of the totality of human nature. As long as
people are preoccupied with matter, a truly fruitful discussion on
the Woman's question will not be possible.

For this reason it
should not surprise us that, in an age that has given birth to a
masculine culture, the spiritual culture which has begun in the
Theosophical movement had to be born from a woman. Thus this
Theosophical or spiritual-scientific movement will prove itself to be
eminently practical. It will lead humanity to overcome gender in
itself and to rise to the level where Spirit-Man or Atman stands
which is beyond gender, beyond the personal — to rise to the
purely human. Theosophy does not speak of the genesis and development
of the human being in general, so that it is gradually recognised.
Thus there will gradually awake in woman a consciousness similar to
that which, during this masculine culture, has awoken in men. Just as
Goethe speaking from the depths of soul, once said, ‘The
Eternal-feminine bears us aloft’, so others too who, as women
feel in themselves the other side of the human being, and who, in a
truly practical sense understand it spiritual-scientifically, will
speak of the Eternal-masculine in the feminine nature. Then true
understanding and a true solution of soul will be possible for the
Women's question.

For external nature is
the physiognomy of the soul life. We have nothing in our external
culture other than what human beings have created, what human beings
have translated from impulses into machines, into industry, into the
legal system. In their development, external institutions reflect the
development of the soul. An age, however, which clung to the outer
physiognomy, was able to erect barriers between men and women. An age
that is no longer entrenched in what is material, what is external,
but which will receive knowledge of the inner nature of the human
being which transcends sex, and will, without wishing to crawl into
bleakness or asceticism or to deny sexuality, enable and beautify the
sexual and live in that element which is beyond it. And people will
then have an understanding for what will bring the true solution to
the woman's question, because it will present, at the same time, the
true solution to the eternal question of humanity. One will then no
longer say: ‘The Eternal-feminine bears us aloft’, or
‘The Eternal-masculine bears us aloft’, but, with deep
understanding, with deep spiritual understanding one will say:
‘The Eternal-human bears us aloft’.